A teen is opening up about returning to the same water where he survived a shark attack.
Jameson Reeder Jr., now 13, had a portion of his leg amputated nearly three years ago when he got attacked by an 8-food bull shark while snorkeling in the Florida Keys with his family in August 2022.
In a new interview with Good Morning America, which coincided with the release of his family’s book Rescue at the Reef: The Miraculous True Story of a Little Boy with Big Faith, the young boy spoke about what it was like to get back in the water.
Understandably, the teen admitted he felt “a little scared before I jumped in.”
“I wanted to go in and for a split two seconds, it was like a whole flashback of the whole shark attack just because of the environment of the whole reef,” he said.
Jameson Reeder Jr/Instagram
Jameson Reeder Jr.
But ultimately, his faith helped him meet the moment.
“I knew I had the Lord and so, I popped up and I just had a lot of fun,” he said.
“To see him reclaim that from fear was such, I think, not just victory for him and all of us, but for so many people who’ve been following the story,” added his dad, Jameson Reeder Sr. “And do it with so much joy and strength. That was the epitome of that day — joy and strength.”
In the aftermath of the attack, Reeder Jr.’s parents alerted a nearby boat, which helped bring the family to shore. Once paramedics arrived, the boy was airlifted to a hospital.
“They had to remove/amputate from just below the knee to save his life as it was not operable from the damage the shark had caused,” his uncle Joshua Reeder wrote on Facebook in 2022. “They said the shark made the decision for him and wasn’t anything they could do to save it.”
Jameson Reeder Jr/Instagram
Jameson Reeder Jr.
In September 2022, Reeder Jr. told Good Morning America that although he’s “very sad that my foot is gone” he was just “happy to be alive.”
The boy has since undergone six surgeries and re-learned how to walk, run and jump. As for the future, well, the teen has his eye on the baseball diamond.
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“I was a pitcher before the shark attack and I’m trying to get back to it. I’ve had some tough times and pain,” he said in his latest GMA interview, “but with how good prosthetics are getting, I actually have no more pain now playing.”
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